But there is another reference that the organisers obviously hadn’t considered when they encouraged Americans to come out “teabagging”.

Anyone who doesn’t immediately understand the sexual connotation should refer to urban dictionary.com. I couldn’t possibly describe it here!

As the protests were discussed on American TV it soon became very obvious that the anchors at 24 news channel MSNBC and CNN didn’t need a dictionary to explain how to “teabag”. Their coverage was peppered with not too subtle double entendres.

But that didn’t stop the estimable Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show talking about “hot teabagging action”, saying the protestors “don’t want to teabag alone – if that’s even possible”. Her guest, Air America’s Ana Marie Cox, added, “who wouldn’t want to teabag John McCain?”.

The tea parties claimed to be a spontaneous grassroots uprising against Obama’s tax polices that would show the strength of right wing opposition. But it’s been seriously questioned just how spontaneous they really were. And they were not exactly huge.

So the organisers are now complaining about the coverage instead. But they should be pleased that all the sexual innuendo distracted attention from some of the protestors who turned up carrying signs which read “Barack Obama supports sodomy”, “Obama’s plan – white slavery”, “Our tax dollars are given to Hamas to kill Jews and Americans”, and one picture of Obama dressed up as Hitler.